“With the economy what it is, people are looking for value and service,” Seminole Square Giant store manager Soumera Sayasithsena.. “Whoever provides that best, that’s where people are going to shop.”

By TIM PARADIS
AP Business Writer

A weekly listing of property transfers and building permits in and around Charlottesville. 

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If you think the $700 billion bailout of the mortgage crisis was expensive, wait until we need to bail out Social Security. Between 2037 and 2075 the Social Security program is projected to run deficits totaling $30 trillion. And annual shortfalls are projected to start as soon as 2017.

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The Charlottesville region’s highly competitive supermarket landscape is shifting.

Wall Street extended its devastating decline Friday as investors, still seeing no resolution to the credit crisis, sold frantically and propelled the Dow Jones industrials to their eighth straight day of losses and worst week ever. Stocks gyrated in the opening minutes as a burst of buying in financial stocks spread to other sectors, but all the major indexes were down more than 5 percent by midafternoon.

From Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, there were 1,962 houses sold in the region. There were 2,506 homes sold during the same period in 2007.

News that the Bush administration is considering taking part ownership in a number of U.S. banks helped restore a relative calm over global financial markets Thursday.

Citigroup and Wells Fargo have agreed to extend their legal standstill in the fight for Wachovia until Friday morning.

“The dollar today is what the penny was to the grandparent’s generation,” said Marshal Cohen, an analyst for the research firm NPD Group. “When you can get something for a dollar and it works, people get excited.”

When a hurricane threatens, making a plan and gearing up for emergencies is imperative. Economic emergencies happen too, but it may be less obvious how to prepare. Here are seven steps you should take to weather any financial storm.

A weekly listing of property transfers and building permits in and around Charlottesville. 

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A battle broke out for control of Wachovia Friday as Wells Fargo signed a $15.1 billion agreement to buy the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank, while Citigroup and the federal regulators backing its earlier deal insisted that Citi’s takeover bid go forward.

U.S. employers slashed payrolls by 159,000 in September, the most in more than five years, a worrisome sign that the economy is hurtling toward a deep recession.

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A weekly listing of property transfers and building permits in and around Charlottesville. 

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Assigning blame for recent events in the financial markets is today’s most pressing political issue. Unintended cause and effect are both complex and subtle, but recognizing the culprits is important if we want to avoid giving them additional power and responsibility.

Veteran banker Glenn Rust sat down with The Daily Progress to discuss the Charlottesville region’s economy, the nation’s financial crisis and his plans for Virginia National Bank’s future growth.

Updated 3:30 p.m. “I now expect that we will indeed have a plan that can pass the House, pass the Senate (and) be signed by the president,” said Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah.
Economy Forum Thread

President Bush is bringing presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain into negotiations on a $700 billion rescue of Wall Street as Democrats and Republicans near agreement on a bailout plan with more protections for taxpayers and new help for distressed homeowners.

“The financial markets are in quite fragile condition and I think absent a plan they will get worse,” Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said.

Top executive Philip J. Schoonover resigned yesterday, four months after he asked shareholders for more time to turn around Circuit City Stores Inc.